See the graph on pg. 2. You'll notice that public schools on average give out about a 3.0 and private schools on average give out above a 3.3. I'm not saying this means that any individual's gpa was easier to get than someone else's, but actual numbers should play some role in this debate.

PS I went to a public school, obviously.

These numbers are almost meaningless, IMO. What are the average incoming students at these schools like? I'd wager that the average private school student is a better one than the average public school student. I'd be curious to see a comparison of incoming SAT scores related to college GPA and public and private schools.

They are almost meaningless. Almost. But the thing that I wonder about is how well the gpa boost compensates for the higher ability of students in certain schools. I fully understand the "I was drunk" or the "I was working" or the "I wasn't that good at school" reasons for having a lower gpa. But the "you don't even know how hard my undergrad was" just sounds like crying to me. I'm sure there are some programs that are tough to get a great gpa out of (I could guess, but it's a pointless exercise), but really, was your undergrad so hard that you couldn't possibly do well with no other responsibilities?

humbugger wrote: I'm sure there are some programs that are tough to get a great gpa out of (I could guess, but it's a pointless exercise), but really, was your undergrad so hard that you couldn't possibly do well with no other responsibilities?

Question, y'all. How are we defining "well" and "great" and those other relative terms? What's the cutoff? Is it 3.9, 3.75, 2.0?

Besides, I think law school admissions committees have their own idea of what constitutes a good GPA in a certain program from a certain school given their years of experience receiving apps from the kids pouring out of said programs and schools. That's the more relevant comparison anyway. "For all the apps from PoliSci majors at X University that we've gotten in years past, as well as this year, how does this one kid compare?" makes more sense than "Wait, wait, wait, someone in that pile of apps had a GPA that was TWO TENTHS OF A POINT HIGHER!! Fuck this kid, he dumb!"